


Sophia Grace

by emilyfuckingprentiss



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-04
Updated: 2017-02-04
Packaged: 2018-09-22 01:31:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9575906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emilyfuckingprentiss/pseuds/emilyfuckingprentiss
Summary: A surprise awaits Emily Prentiss when she returns from a brutal case.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place during Season 3, an addition/my ending to the episode "Minimal Loss". As always, Victoria Grey and Sophia Grace are my own characters, however the rest belong to the creators/writers of Criminal Minds.

The pounding remained, continuing to agitate her beaten, concussed head as the team returned to the office in the middle of the night. Words of teammates seemed slurred, morphed into phrases she could not quite comprehend, yet she forced a smile on her face, nodding when she felt appropriate, ignoring the looks of concern. Heading to her desk, she removed the cell phone from her pocket, immediately set uneasy about the numerous missed calls from her wife.  
The past week had been hell for the agents, more so her than the others. Going undercover into an underground cult to investigate reported child abuse, she and another agent had found themselves trapped inside the compound when a federal raid compromised their careful plans. Then, soon after, someone outside of the compound had spilled information that one inside was an FBI agent, and she took the single blame for lying to the leader. “It’s me,” she stated, saving her partner altogether, despite the consequences. For lying, manipulating the cult’s leader, she was beaten. Her ribs were fractured, her nose broken, and yet, knowing her team outside could hear, she told them she could “take it”. And she did. However, during the vicious attack, the only thoughts running through her mind were of her wife, her pregnant wife carrying their child, their daughter. She thought of the grey nursery her wife had spent the last six months completing, decorating the walls in frame photographs and elephant décor. “The female elephants raise the young, you know,” her wife had told her one day as they were setting the newly purchased grey and blue bedding. She watched the woman carefully place a stuffed elephant in the crib, a hand running back and forth on her swollen abdomen.  
With each kick to her cage of ribs, she thought of the smile her wife displayed each night she returned home, knowing the moment they were through with the case, the woman she loved would smile at her once again, and everything would be okay, worth it. When she felt the cartilage of her nose snap, an outpour of blood coating her lips, her mind remained on the thought of the woman she loved, the way she gripped the agent’s tee shirt, tightly, as they slept, as if she never wanted to let go, the way her wife sauntered around their house, calling out the agent’s name only to whisper “I just wanted to say hi” when receiving her undivided attention.  
Each night at the compound, as she lay in her given bed, alone in a small room, ignoring the excruciating pain and never ending thumping in her head, her mind wandered to thoughts of her wife laying on their couch, her stomach protruding from beneath the crocheted blanket, her dark hair sprawled out around her shoulders, her hands tucked beneath the growing bump, shallow breaths falling between her pouting pink lips. Those nights she would kneel beside the younger woman, placing her own hand on their baby’s protective dome, and smile silently, knowing this was what she had been missing her entire life, this was who she had been missing, needing, desiring. Those nights she would kiss the younger woman’s left temple, awaiting her slow awakening only to kiss her soft, warm, sleep blessed lips as a prince would a princess to awaken her from a wicked curse.  
As she held the phone to her ever ringing left ear, holding it far enough away as to not touch the black and blue bruising decorating her tan skin, she heard the youngest agent, the one whom she had saved, make a curious observation. “Guys, there’s someone in the conference room.” Her eyes followed the length of his outstretched arm, fingers pointing to the spoken location, and he was right. There was a figure pacing back and forth passed the windows of the dimly lit room. Then, she heard it: the ringing of her wife’s phone, coming from the occupied room, and the pieces slowly began falling together in her muffled, confused mind. She raced up the expanse of stairs, followed by the other exhausted members of her team, and pushed open the large, wooden door eagerly only to find the world around her stop entirely.  
There was her dark-haired wife, smiling widely, tears staining through her made up cheeks, dressed in running shorts and an old tee shirt, as beautiful and breathtaking as she had always been. But in her arms she held something, someone quite new: a baby wrapped in a blue and grey blanket, a blue hat placed upon her small head, eyes shut tightly, sleeping peacefully.  
She couldn’t breathe, her lungs surely had collapsed, and her heartbeat stopped. Suddenly, her hands were trembling, sweating. She felt her lips curl into a smile, but wasn’t sure if she had directed the action voluntarily.  
“Emily,” her wife spoke softly with a quivering bottom lip, “this is Sophia Grace…our baby girl.”  
Taking a few steps forward, she looked down upon the newborn unsure how to touch her, to hold her. Her dark eyes wandered to the one place they felt home, the blue orbs that were her wife’s. “She’s beautiful,” she whispered, pushing the words passed her closing throat as she held back the outcry that lay within her. Her hands cupped the younger woman’s face and she kissed her with every ounce of energy left in her body, in her mind, she kissed her as if she was sure she was to never see her again after the beating she had endured. She kissed her like the sun kisses the moon for the entire world to see, to label an eclipse, a kiss people wait a lifetime to feel. In that moment, she gave everything she had left to give to the woman standing before her.  
Their lips unlocked slowly, lovingly. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t be there for you, sweetheart,” she muttered inches from the younger woman’s lips.  
Her wife shook her head, allowing a trapped chuckle to fall into the minimal space between them. “It’s alright, Emily,” she paused looking down at the infant, bringing the female agent’s eyes along with her own. “Do you want to hold her?”  
Uncertainty suddenly consumed her mind, wondering if she could, should hold the child, her child, her baby girl with such rough, beaten hands. However, her heart overrode her spiraling mind, forcing her hands out toward the sleeping beauty, taking her into her arms, feeling the small, new weight, new dependency upon her. “Hi, Sophia,” she mumbled, allowing her own tears to spill from her eyes, sliding down her cheeks slowly. She was truly beautiful, nothing like the woman had imagined in the past, now gone eight months of preparing and worrying.  
“Emily, what happened to you?” She felt warm, familiar fingers brush across the discoloration of her cheek, yet she didn’t feel the pain. Perhaps staring at the small being, the new being in which she loved more than the world, the sleeping being whom she would always protect, perhaps Sophia being there in her arms numbed her to the pain of the world around them.  
Returning her attention to the younger woman, she grinned passed the saltine tears. “A lot, but I’m okay, sweetheart. How are you?”  
“I’m tired,” she shrugged with a small, adorned laugh, “but I don’t think I’ve ever been happier than I am right now.”  
The infant stirred in her grip, lips opening and closing subtly in search for comfortability. Eyes fluttered open taking in the dim light above, and she lost her breath all over, again, staring into the new, dark eyes much like her own. She swore Sophia stared back, analyzing her, accessing her ability to care for her, to protect her, wondering why her face was painted with blacks and blues, but somehow she knew that the infant recognized her as her other mother. “Hi,” she whispered, using a finger to remove the corner of blanket that rested on her daughter’s lower lip. She was greeted with five, warm, tiny fingers slowly wrapping themselves around her single digit.  
Before her lungs could remember their purpose, Derek Morgan spoke up amongst the silence. “C’mon, Prentiss, pass her to Uncle Derek.” She was unsure she would ever want to let go of the pondering infant, wide-eyed and curious, and she was hesitant to hand her over to the only man she trusted with her own life. Her fingers lingered for a moment before the contact was lost completely, but her eyes remained set on the dark-eyed baby.  
“Victoria, Emily, congratulations,” Supervisory Special Agent Aaron Hotchner nodded. “I expect to see you, Prentiss, in twelve weeks from today.” For the first time in a while, she saw a smile play across his face before he looked away.  
Butterflies released within her stomach, breaking free from their carefully constructed cocoons as she felt a soft hand on her back, running along the expanse of her blazer. She looked to the younger woman placing her calloused hands on her cheeks and kissing her once more. “I love you so much, Victoria,” she whispered, hardly audible to her own ears. “And, though I couldn’t be there for you, I am so proud of you, so, so proud of you, sweetheart. I promise, from now on, I will be there for everything.”  
“Emily,” her wife chuckled, “you can’t promise something like that. Your work takes you all over the country for unknown periods of time, and…” She silenced her with another kiss, yet said nothing in opposition.  
“Hey, uh, Prentiss,” Spencer Reid captured her attention. She glanced at the infant still in the dark-skinned man’s arms before looking to her most recent case partner. “I, uh, I wanted to apologize. I should have told Cyrus that I was the agent, not you. I mean, what if something would have happened to you and you couldn’t have been here for your daughter? It was selfish of me, and I’m truly sorry.”  
“Reid,” she mumbled taking him into a hug, “none of this is your fault. Okay? There’s nothing to apologize for, and I am here, so there is no reason to worry about what ifs.”  
“Auntie Penelope coming through! Give her over, sunshine!” Penelope Garcia, the team’s technical analyst, demanded heading toward Derek Morgan. However, the newborn began crying, screaming at the top of her tiny lungs. Stepping in front her wife, she took Sophia into her arms, again, rocking her back and forth. “It’s okay, love. What’s wrong? Did Uncle Derek frighten you? He has that effect on a lot of girls, it’s okay,” she joked, turning back toward the younger woman. Almost immediately, the infant’s crying ceased as the women smiled at each other, and she found that to be humorous, yet she didn’t laugh. Her mind cleared becoming increasingly aware of the smile across from her, the smile she thought of during one of the worst weeks of her life, the smile she fell in love with four years previous, the smile that, like most beautiful things, took her breath away.  
She knew Sophia Grace would soon waddle around their house, squealing a language of her own, and beautifully wearing that same smile. And everything would be okay.


End file.
